Collagen is the major structural protein that provides firmness to your skin.
It makes young skin look plump and firm.
As you age, your body reduces the amount of collagen it produces and your skin loses its tone and elasticity.
When they start to get lines and wrinkles on their faces, some people get collagen injections to "plump up" their skin and give it a more youthful appearance.
You have probably seen skin firming lotions that contain collagen and claim to produce firmer skin and give it back its youthful firmness.
Collagen molecules are actually too large to penetrate the surface of the skin.
Applying collagen topically will not provide your skin with more collagen.
The best way to help firm your skin is by using products that protect the collagen your skin already has and that will help it to produce more of its own collagen.
Free radicals are responsible for the loss of natural collagen in our skin.
We get free radicals in our bodies when certain foods are broken down or we come into contact with contaminants from the environment.
These free radicals attack and destroy otherwise healthy cells.
Anti-oxidants eliminate or reduce free radicals from our bodies.
Anti-oxidants occur naturally in some of the foods we eat and they may be applied to our skin and absorbed.
So, the best collagen firming lotions are those that have anti-oxidants as opposed to those that contain collagen molecules.
Lotions that contain peptides may also be beneficial to firming skin.
Specific peptides are stimulated to synthesize collagen production.
Products containing peptide fragments that are responsible for collagen synthesis may be applied topically to the skin and absorbed to give your collagen production a boost.
Of course, there are other products available for skin firming that don't contain any collagen or products that increase your skin's own production of collagen.
These products may also be effective in firming skin.
With so many new products on the market, the best way to determine if a product is right for you is by researching the ingredients.
Scientific studies are usually performed by a source that is interested in the results of one specific ingredient, for example, collagen.
If you find studies that have been done on collagen, then you can comfortably assume that the results are not biased.
Studies performed by a company on its own product that contains collagen may not be as reliable.
When choosing a skin firming lotion, the best choice will be one that helps your body do what it was intended to do naturally as opposed to one that contains a lot of chemical ingredients that can actually do harm.